rick@beowulf.ucsd.edu (Rick Randall) (07/21/89)
I'd be interested in hearing of candidates for the smartest Ada editor currently available for SunOS programming. Today I had a demonstration of Telesoft's new TeleARCS facility, and while I am impressed with the direction of the product, there are a number of things I wish it did better - and still others it doesn't do at all. The main things missing (in my opinion) were: 1. Integrated Mouse Support, in both the text editor and in the facility as a whole 2. Use of SunWindows: the windowing they have implemented so far is targeted at conventional character terminals (e.g. VT100)...everything is tiled in a single window via horizontal areas that cannot easily be resized on the fly. 3. Much smarter text editor, including the ability to suppress the display of Ada blocks (such as while loops) so that the user can view the higher level logic with less of the lower level detail What TeleARCS does do for you is tie the editor in with the compiler (not as smootly as Turbo Pascal, however!), allow you to jump to referenced units or to declarations of referenced variables - simply by positioning the cursor and pressing a function key; allow you to browse through a quasi-graphical depiction of the unit-dependency network; etc. Pretty good all in all, but much better things to come. Any other candidates? Anyone used ADADL? Is ADADL usable for actual program development? Rick Randall EECS Department University of California, San Diego rick%cs@ucsd.edu rrandall@ucsd [BITNET] rrandall@ucsd.edu [Internet] ...!ucsd!rrandall [UUCP]
nancy@telesoft.UUCP (Nancy McConlogue @dance) (07/27/89)
The version of TeleArcs currently released is our TTY product aimed at the standard terminal world. In this case, tiled windowing and 'zooming' support are exceedingly useful. But for those who have Sun workstations...TeleSoft will release a window product based on SunView this fall. This new version of TeleArcs will support all the luxuries of windows you would expect, including two of your requests: >1. Integrated Mouse Support, in both the text editor > and in the facility as a whole >2. Use of SunWindows (This work was done using TeleSoft's Ada bindings to SunView. These bindings are available to customers FYI) Your third request is part of a larger plan we have for the editor. >3. Much smarter text editor, including the ability to >suppress the display of Ada blocks (such as while >loops) so that the user can view the higher level >logic with less of the lower level detail Currently it is possible to 'outline' your source, based on procedures, packages, types etc. Next step is to provide this with leveling facility to selectively display only those portions wanted visible. As the editor becomes more semantic oriented, this facility will become more fine-tuned. Other 'editor smart' work in progress is for semantic completion based on the Ada library information. I appreciate the comments and critique. Let me know if you have other items on your 'wish' list. Nancy McConlogue Product Manager TeleArcs TeleSoft (619)457-2700 uucp: ucsd!telesoft!nancy